


In The Scope of Everything

by fightforyourwrite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Head Injury, Old Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 02:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10935402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightforyourwrite/pseuds/fightforyourwrite
Summary: Rico Brzenska visits an old friend.





	In The Scope of Everything

**Author's Note:**

> I've been really into writing Rico Brzenska lately. Help me.

Rico Brzenska did not forget things easily. It was part of her duty as a Squad Leader to recall any detail she can and keep her eyes on the prize. 

It was common to witness the Survey Corps coming back with soldiers resting in their wagons. Seeing people with bandages wrapped around their limbs and exhaustion clouding their eyes was nothing out of the ordinary. 

Over time, Rico had grown numb to seeing injured soldiers coming back. It was not out of heartlessness, because seeing the same thing over and over again was bound to lessen the initial shock of it all.

However, when Rico noticed a certain someone lying in one of those wagons. When her eyes came across an old friend, redding gauze wrapped around their forehead, Rico felt something.

A part of her heart started to worry. Not an uncontrollable worrying that usually drove people to make bad choices, but worry out of caring. 

So when Rico was allowed a single day off from her Garrison duties, she decided to use it wisely. 

She knew there was a base near Southwest Rose where injured Corps members were housed and tended to. 

With the aid of a horse she  _ ‘borrowed’ _ from Ian, Rico made her way from Trost to the Southwest. In the back of her mind, Rico wondered where she would have to search next if it turned out that her friend wasn’t there. 

The security at the Corps base was oddly lax. Granted, no one really wanted to infiltrate a base filled with soldiers chasing death wishes, but it still surprised Rico how easily she could access the place.

She managed to slip in through the front door right after tying Ian’s horse near a water trough. 

Rico didn’t tread on Corps territory a lot, allowing her to be pleasantly surprised when she saw how clean the base’s walls were. 

In her head, she built up the image that their bases were left uncared for and in shambles. She often imagined things like musty windows and shoddy furniture occupying the space inside their buildings. 

But as she walked through the halls on her own, she took note of the spotless surfaces and dustless floors. 

For once, Rico was quite pleased to be wrong. 

It took a little bit of asking around, but every time Rico asked of a  _ ‘Nanaba Kaspar,’ _ the answers she got seemed to point her in the right direction.

Rico came into the help of a guy who went by Gelgar. He was a man just a little younger than her with a broad nose and one of the most peculiar hairstyles Rico had ever seen on a soldier. 

Gelgar led Rico through the base with a serious disposition. He appeared to perceive Rico as someone hostile, which made her wonder if he knew who she was beforehand. 

Rico did have a reputation amongst the military branches, even in the ones outside the Garrison. The rumours depicted her as a serious, hardworking, stubbornly logical soldier. 

They were nowhere near wrong, but it did surprise Rico just how quickly that idea of her spread over the years. 

Gelgar led Rico to a closed door. He raised his hand up and knocked on it three times. 

“Nanaba?”

A muffled but prominent voice responded from inside.

“What?” 

Gelgar opened the door just a crack, sticking his head in.

Rico attempted to peak in too, but Gelgar purposely seemed to be blocking her out. 

“Nanaba, there’s a tiny little soldier here to see you,” Gelgar stated. 

“Levi?” responded the voice. Rico was definitely sure that it was Nanaba responding. 

Gelgar spoke again, “No, not him. This one’s smaller and has glasses. Says her name is Rico Brzenska. Says she knows you.”

“Let her in then, Gelgar,” came Nanaba’s voice. “She’s a friend.” 

Gelgar nodded his head and opened the door fully. He turned to Rico and said, “Lucky you. She  _ does _ know who you are.” 

“I figured that for myself,” Rico claimed, walking into the room. Gelgar closed the door and left the two alone. 

When Rico entered the area, the first thing she focused on was the old friend of hers lying in a bed. 

Nanaba resting with her eyes staring towards the ceiling. The bandage wrapped around her head was a telltale sign of her recuperation. Nanaba’s deep blue eyes were filled to the brim with exhaustion, but seeing an old friends of hers appeared to ignited a sense of light inside of her. 

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you here,” Nanaba greeted. She forced herself up in the bed until she was sitting straight. “What’s going on? Are you to be the bearer of bad news?” 

Rico shook her head as she grabbed a stool from the foot of Nanaba’s bed. “No bad news. Not today.” 

She planted the stool down before sitting on it. “It’s my day off and I figured I spend it visiting a friend. How’s your head?” 

“Better than this morning,” Nanaba replied, touching the bandage wrapped around her forehead. “How’d you know I was here?” 

“I know that this is where all injured Corps members go to heal,” Rico explained, adjusting her horn-rimmed spectacles. “I helped open the gates for you guys yesterday. I couldn’t help but notice you laying in one of the wagons. You looked like you were hurt.”

Mindlessly, Rico rubbed small circles on her knee with the pad of her index finger, “So what happened to you?” 

Nanaba shrugged, glancing down, “It’s mostly a blur to me, but I apparently I took a spill off my horse. According to Mike, I hit a tree trunk and nearly passed out. I can’t really remember all of it though.” 

“Are you going to make it?” Rico asked, soon realizing just how blunt and bleak her words were right after she said them. 

Nanaba nodded, “I’ll survive. Mike told me to take some days off to recuperate because I was mumbling nonsense all the way back to the walls.” 

Her hand grasped against the thin sheets of her bed before she glanced up again to look at her friend, “You didn’t have to come here.” 

“Well, it’s my day off and I get to do with it what I please,” Rico justified. She took off her glasses and started cleaning the lenses with the material of her shirt. 

Her grey eyes focused on Nanaba’s bandages. “Do you think that’s gonna leave a scar?” 

Nanaba shook her head, “I hope not. It bled a little afterwards.” 

Looking at Nanaba now started to turn the gears in Rico’s head. But for once, they were not turning forward, but instead, they were turning back. 

Over a decade ago, Rico could remember a time when she was fifteen and Nanaba was sixteen. 

After a year into training, the instructor bestowed a group task for the Cadets that involved getting from one side of a forest to the other, the catch was that they were to use their 3DMG only. Touching the ground would lose points for not just the individual, but for the entire team. 

Rico could remember being part of Nanaba’s team that day. There was no assigned leader of each group, but Nanaba had taken it to herself to guide everyone through. 

Nanaba was stubborn in that sense. She had trouble standing aside in certain situations and not taking control of a moment that needed guidence. 

Rico could not recall most of how the most event actually went down, because about fifteen minutes into soaring in the woods on her 3DMG, something went wrong. 

It could have been her glasses slipping off (again) or something faulty in her gear, but that didn’t matter. Because somehow, Rico had suddenly flown off in the wrong direction. 

Having not reacted in time, Rico crashed directly into the branches of a tree. She flew right into them and was left dangling awkwardly by her 3DMG cables. 

In that one moment, before she evidently passed out, all Rico’s senses could perceive was an aching in her limbs, pain and wetness on her forehead, and Nanaba screaming her name. 

A day passed and Rico regained consciousness in the infirmary. 

What she first noticed upon waking was the gauze wrapped around her forehead, and the sight of Nanaba Kaspar sitting near the foot of her bed. Her friend wore a guilty expression, one that gave off the idea that she was to blame for the whole fiasco.

Perhaps in the scope of everything, Rico coming to visit Nanaba was a favour owed. 

Because Nanaba cared so much about Rico getting hurt all those years ago, the least she could do to repay the notion was to visit her old friend when the tables had turned. 

Curiously, Rico reached her hand up to her head and felt the spot where her old would used to be. She never considered that the injury would leave her a scar, since she always wore her hair in a way that would cover it. 

To her surprise, that part of her forehead was smooth. The injury had healed up completely. 

“Do you remember back in our training days,” Rico started, taking her hand down from her head. “When we were practicing using our ‘gear in the woods? How I flew straight into a tree like some drunk toddler? I had to wear a bandage on my head for over a week afterwards.” 

Nanaba raised an eyebrow, her blue eyes starting to fill with thought. “I don’t think so. We all got our fair share of injuries back then.” She had the scars on her legs to prove it.

“Really?” Rico asked, surprised. “You got so worked up over me getting hurt. It wasn’t even your fault.” She looked to the spectacles that she was holding in her hand, “It was my glasses, I’m sure of it. They slipped off all the time back then.” 

Nanaba looked puzzled. “Did I really get that worked up?” she asked, clearly confused. 

Rico nodded her head, “Absolutely. You were the first one who reacted when I flew into that damn tree.”

Her words did not alter Nanaba’s bewildered state. It seems that all details of the fiasco had been lost to the blonde woman. 

Things like that tended to happen with the passage of time. As the tides pulled someone towards their true calling in life, they usually lost a few things on the way.

Friendships, memories, there was not a limit on what could be lost. 

“I think the reason I didn’t make it into the top ten was because of my glasses,” Rico theorized. She placed her spectacles back onto her face. “If I had goggles back then, I would actually be able to see what I was doing. Maybe then I would have gotten a higher grade.” 

“Would you have gone to the Military Police if you cracked the top ten?” Nanaba wondered, changing the topic of the conversation just mildly.

“I might have,” Rico had to admit. “But I never thought about it during training. There were so many people who wanted to get in, I didn’t see the point in competing with them.”

“So it was the Garrison for you from the get go?” Nanaba inquired, leaning back on the bed’s headboard. 

“Pretty much,” Rico confirmed. She knew even back then, she was in the same boat as a lot of people were. 

Enlist in the military and get a steady flow of meals, a roof over your head, and decent pay to bring home. 

The worst that could ever come out of that scenario was joining the Garrison and keeping the Walls in check for a living. 

“Wall maintenance doesn’t sound so bad compared to what you do,” Rico stated plainly.

Nanaba huffed and rolled her eyes. “You don’t need to sugarcoat it.” 

She reached over to the nightstand near her bed and picked up what appeared to be a mug, presumably one filled with water (or something stronger.) 

“You consider  _ that _ sugarcoating?” Rico inquired. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs and clasping her hands together. “Would you like me to be more blunt then?” 

“Not entirely,” Nanaba claimed, taking a sip of what was hopefully just water. “We’re both adults here. You don’t need to be vague about what I do. But you don’t have to be blunt with me either.” 

“Technically speaking, I don’t have to be blunt with anyone,” Rico pointed out. “Unless, of course, the situation calls for it. But in this case and in this situation, I don’t necessarily have to be. Therefore, no bluntness required.” 

Nanaba blinked, her blue eyes concentrating in thought for a brief second. “You know, half of that went straight over my head.” Perhaps her head injury was starting to act up again. 

Rico let out a subtle sigh. “Have the abridged version then. I won’t be blunt with you.” 

Nanaba seemed to understand that version a little more easily. She put her mug down and relaxed on the bed. She laid herself down on her back and stared up at the ceiling. 

“My head’s starting to hurt again, I need to lie down,” Nanaba stated, shifting her eyes over to her old friend. “But you don’t have to leave right now.” 

“You enjoy the company, don’t you?” Rico theorized. She sat up straight and crossed her legs politely.

Nanaba nodded slowly, “You’re a little more comforting than Gelgar. And a lot more sober to.” 

Rico raised one of her exceedingly bushy eyebrows, “It’s the middle of the afternoon, why  _ wouldn’t _ I be sober?”

“You would be surprised at what some Corps members like to do when off duty,” Nanaba explained. 

Rico shrugged, “Would I really? Because you’re talking to someone who works alongside Dot Pixis.” 

“Hm. Fair point.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Personal Headcanon Time: Rico and Nanaba were in the same batch of trainees. 
> 
> It was stated in canon that Rico was in the same Cadet Corps as Ian and Mitabi. So with that said, Nanaba was also in the same batch as them too.


End file.
